Haydens take part in 'special' reunion

By Joseph Duarte |
April 23, 2013
| Updated: April 24, 2013 9:19am

Houston Fire Department paramedics Bobby Delgado, left, and Kevin Zigal, right, get a thumbs up from D.J. Hayden, center, after they gave him a HFD t-shirt during a reunion at HFD Station 18, 619 Telephone, Tuesday, April 23, 2013, in Houston. Hayden came to the station to thank those involved in saving his life. In November, during football practice at the University of Houston, he suffered a near-fatal heart injury.

Photo By Melissa Phillip/Houston Chronicle

Houston Fire Department paramedics Bobby Delgado, left, watches as Tori Hayden, right, mother of D.J. Hayden, tries to control her emotions while thanking the people who helped save her son shown during a reunion at HFD Station 18, 619 Telephone, Tuesday, April 23, 2013, in Houston. D.J. Hayden and his mother, Tori, came to the station to thank those involved in saving his life. In November, during football practice at the University of Houston, he suffered a near-fatal heart injury.

Photo By Melissa Phillip/Houston Chronicle

Houston Fire Department paramedics Bobby Delgado, left, and Kevin Zigal, center, joke to D.J. Hayden, right, after they watched a video of the football hit that injured Hayden shown during a reunion at HFD Station 18, 619 Telephone, Tuesday, April 23, 2013, in Houston. Hayden came to the station to thank those involved in saving his life. In November, during football practice at the University of Houston, he suffered a near-fatal heart injury.

Photo By Melissa Phillip/Houston Chronicle

Houston Fire Department paramedics Bobby Delgado, left, and Kevin Zigal, center, watch a video of the football hit that resulted in the injury of D.J. Hayden, right, shown during a reunion at HFD Station 18, 619 Telephone, Tuesday, April 23, 2013, in Houston. Hayden came to the station to thank those involved in saving his life. In November, during football practice at the University of Houston, he suffered a near-fatal heart injury.

Photo By Melissa Phillip/Houston Chronicle

Houston Fire Department paramedics Bobby Delgado, left, and Kevin Zigal, center, joke to D.J. Hayden, right, after they watched a video of the football hit that injured Hayden shown during a reunion at HFD Station 18, 619 Telephone, Tuesday, April 23, 2013, in Houston. Hayden came to the station to thank those involved in saving his life. In November, during football practice at the University of Houston, he suffered a near-fatal heart injury.

In a brief presentation outside Fire Station 18, Zigal, Delgado and Dotson received commendations for their roles in helping save Hayden's life. Two other EMS personnel, Jason Anderson and Jeremy Smith, who responded from Fire Station 25 a few blocks from UH, were unable to attend.

"I'm glad I got to meet them," said a completely healed Hayden, who is projected to be a mid-to-late first-round selection in Thursday's NFL draft. "It was important to meet them."

Hayden posed for pictures. He shared memories from that day. He autographed a framed newspaper article detailing his fight for survival.

Mostly, though, he came to say thank you.

"It's special to be a part of his story," Delgado said. "(People) tell us thank you a lot, but for somebody to come back and say it is truly special. We do this job hoping we can make a difference."

Dotson said she will never forget taking the call and later finding out Hayden had survived.

"Some things have an attachment, and this has a lot of attachment for me," Dotson said.

Within minutes of Dotson's dispatching the call, EMS responders arrived at the UH Athletics/Alumni Center. Zigal and Delgado performed a quick assessment. Hayden was in shock and bleeding out. He needed to get to the hospital.

Once at Memorial Hermann Texas Trauma Institute - a level-1 trauma center rated as one of the best in the world - doctors discovered Hayden had a tear of the main vein that carries blood from the lower half of the body to the heart. Surgeons would eventually say Hayden had "another 5 or 10 minutes before time ran out."

"I think about those moments sometimes," Hayden said. "I just pray (thanks) to God that I am here. I'm not using this moment to define me as a person. … This is just a hurdle that I jumped over in my life."